The domain name system (DNS) is a distributed system and/or protocol for promoting data communication based on logical names. For example, the DNS provides translation from a domain name logical name (e.g., paft.uspto.gov) to a specific Internet protocol (IP) address of a specific host computer. The DNS supports alternative mappings of logical name to specific host addresses that may be employed, for example, to route client requests directed to a logical name originating from clients on the West Coast to hosts located on the West Coast and to route other client requests directed to the same logical name but originating from clients on the East Coast to hosts located on the East Coast, thereby conserving communication network resources and reducing data communication latency.
Highly available computer systems and/or highly available computing services may support mission critical services, for example an e-commerce web site for a major on-line retailer. The design of such highly available computer systems may rely on a variety of strategies to reduce the probabilities of downtime and to minimize the duration of downtime. Some of the strategies may be based on providing redundant processing capability so that if one server computer crashes, the load of continuing client requests can be handled by other servers through redirecting client requests, for example by changing a mapping of a logical name to the failed server to map the same logical name to an active server.
A network operations center (NOC) may be provided by a telecommunication service provider to monitor and manage its communications infrastructure. The NOC may comprise a complicated software tool or application that receives and processes large volumes of data to provide various different views into the status of the telecommunication service provider's network infrastructure. The NOC application may provide alarms and access to trouble tickets to operators. The NOC application may provide drill-down views to quickly visualize the current behavior and functioning of the telecommunication service provider's network infrastructure and to provide controls to reset equipment and to adjust equipment settings. In some cases, the NOC application may be provided as a highly available computing service.